Fire and Ice - a Bad Combination, a Great Avenger
by xXDaughterOfWisdomXx
Summary: Holly was strange. She could admit that. Heck, that was ingrained into her mind thanks to the amount of times her parents had beaten it into her. But she also had super powers in a country with no other heroes and no villains to fight. Society would never accept her. Unless, however, she joined the Avengers. And that's exactly what she did. ClintxOC rated M for language
1. prologue

Holly was lucky. So, goddamn lucky. Firstly, she's abused and beaten. Everybody claims that they hate the idea of child abuse and all that bullshit. Of course, they claimed it was a punishable offence, but not normally one where the law was enforced. Everyone was a little busy with all the murderers and bank robbers and proper, life endangering criminals to care too much about the hundreds of kids getting beaten and abused on a daily basis. Including Holly. Then there was also the problem of her powers. She lives in Scotland. A country rather lacking in heroes and villains. The thing is, America is the only country that has superheroes or even knows about their existence. To the rest of the world, superheroes were people who only existed in comic books, movies or bad cartoons. Not very widely known of in the rest of the world. Thats the main reason Holly is beaten. Her powers. Her parents saw signs of Holly's strange abilities pretty early on. The tried to beat them out of her. Sometimes, though, her powers slipped out of her control. They went wild and sporadic. She would accidentally hit her parents with a blast of ice or fire. Thats what her power is. A strange control over fire and ice. Unfortunately, when she did fight back, she was horribly overpowered. As soon as she wanted to do something with her abilities, they refused to work. Her parents beat her more if she did this. It got so bad that they ended up shoving her in the cupboard under the stairs - a horrible Harry Potter rip-off, but Holly couldnt break out. Wasn't her life perfect?

**sorry if this chapter is pretty awful. This is just the prologue so the first proper chapter should be better! **

**xX lexi Xx**


	2. Chapter 1 - the meeting

**Hey guys, this is the next chapter. Sorry if it's not great, I just wanted you guys to know how they met, and stuff. So, hope you like it!**

Steve's p.o.v.

I just wanted one, peaceful day at home. Was that too much to ask? Apparently it was. As I sat, enjoying the quiet in the usually noisy tower, the alarm sounded. Seriously? Shoving my sketchbook away, I quickly grabbed my shield and suited up before heading to meet the rest of the Avengers on the Avenjet.

"If you've forgotten another anniversary with Pepper and we're here to get the gifts, then let us go because you'll be on your own," I grumbled as a flop down on a chair.

"Of course I've forgotten another anniversary," replied Tony. "But we do actually have a proper mission. We're getting signals that Skull and MODOK are causing havoc in none other than Scotland."

"Scotland?" repeated Clint. "Why would anyone want to go there? It's cold, rainy and has the Scottish."

"I don't think you realise how politically incorrect that statement was," reprimanded Tony. "But SHIELD thinks he's recruiting."

"Who's there to recruit in Scotland?" I asked, genuinely intrigued.

"That's the whole point," replied Tony. "We have no idea. We figured that if we just follow Skull then we'll find them."

**Time Lapse**

"How long till we get there?" Clint asked, bored as usual.

"About five minutes," replied Tony, impatiently.

"Well make it go faster, I'm boooooooooored," Everyone chose to ignore this statement.

Suddenly, there was a jaw-rattling BOOM! and suddenly we were falling. Fast. Once we hit the ground (ow), I looked around and saw who we were looking for.

"Good news and bad news," I told Tony as he stood up.

"Ugh, what is it, Cap?" he asked.

"We found who we came for, and MODOK is temporarily out of action, so he can't mess with your suit."

"What's the bad news?"

"They're fighting a fourteen year old girl who looks like she's going to pass out from exhaustion any minute."

"That's unfortunate. Avengers, Assemble!"

It seemed, however, that this order wasn't required since, almost as soon as it left Tony's mouth, Skull was enveloped in flames shot by none other than the same fourteen year old girl's hands. When the flames died, Skull was laying wheezing on the ground from the fire, and MODOK was currently in a massive block of ice a few feet away.

Unfortunately for us, however, then the girl spotted us. She seemed nervous, really nervous. It was understandable, I guess. She's just fought two of the world's greatest villains and suddenly seven more people arrive. Add on to that she looks like she really took a beating in that last battle and looks like she's going to pass out from exhaustion.

But we were rather stupid. We were so preoccupied with the girl that we forgot Skull. Still wheezing, he shot a beam of pure energy right at the girl's head. We tried to stop it, but we were too slow. She realised just before impact and managed to put up a shield of what looked like ice. That weakened the blast considerably but eventually the shield shattered and the blast hit her straight on. It wasn't as powerful as it could have been but it was enough to knock her unconscious. Clint, being the strangely quick thinker he is (I know, it sounds impossible, but it's true) shot one of his ice arrows at Skull and he, too, became a rather unfortunate ice sculpture. I have to say, I know the feeling. It's not fun.

Rushing over to the girl' side, we very carefully turned her over from where she had fallen. And it was a lot worse than we originally thought. Doing a quick once-over to look for wounds, I found a deep gash in her head from where Skull's energy blast hit her, but I also saw multiple bruises and scrapes all over her body. But something about these didn't make sense.

"They're too prominent to be from this battle," Clint decided. "And look at the shape. It seems far more likely that she got these at home."

I automatically knew what he meant. And so did Tony. "Then we can't let her go back home," I concluded.

"No need," she whispered, so quietly I almost didn't hear it. "They disowned me… powers…"

I got the gist of it. She had been beaten and disowned just because of her powers. "Right, come on," I told the others. "We've got to get to the jet." The others, clearly not having heard what the girl said, were extremely confused. "I'll explain later. Right now, we need to give her medical attention."


	3. Chapter 2 - explanations

**Hey guys! So this is the newest chapter of my story, tell me what you think and what could happen next! hope you like it ;)**

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Clint's p.o.v.

I bent down and gathered the girl in my arms. I couldn't help but think that she was seriously beautiful. No, don't think that Clint. She's fourteen. She is not going to go out with you. Anyway, as I carefully picked her up, I couldn't help thinking about all those bruises. She had said something earlier, but only Steve's supersenses had managed to catch what she was saying. I don't really know how her parents will react, but oh well.

I carefully walked up the steps of the jet and went to the on-board infirmary. Steve, being the most trained in medicine and battle injuries, told the rest of us to leave and started working immediately.

Three hours later, we arrived back in New York and the girl still hadn't woken up. Steve had assured us that she would be alright but we were all still worried. How she even ended up fighting those two I don't know. Unfortunately for us, however, they had managed to escape so we couldn't lock them up. It probably wouldn't do much, anyway. They'd find some way to escape.

Four days after we got back, the girl finally woke up. She slipped into the kitchen so quietly we wouldn't have known she was there if it wasn't for the resident assassin.

Natasha let out a low chuckle. "Finally woken up, have we?" she asked, not even turning around. The girl stepped out of the shadows and, for the first time, we managed to get a good look at her. She stood about 5'6" and had waist length white-blonde hair, dip-dyed red and currently braided over one shoulder in a sort of i-really-don't-give-a-shit-about-my-looks way. She wore a blue and white checked shirt and torn, light jeans with black combat boots. She gave off a complete air of ease, as if she wasn't scared witless of an assassin, a super-soldier, a god and a could-be giant green monster sitting around drinking coffee. As well as me and Tony. But the thing that was most frightening about her was her eyes. One was ice-white as if somebody had literally just frozen her eye. But the other was black with red swirling red flecks, like a smouldering coal. Since she arrived, JARVIS had managed to work out what she could do. I guess her eyes represented the two different sides of both her abilities, and her personality.

She cast her eyes around the room, eyeing each of us as if she was working out the best way to take us down. She probably was. Once she seemed certain that there were no more of us hiding in the shadows, she finally spoke. "Where am I?"

"Shtark towersh, my humble home," slurred Tony, already drunk. The girl seemed to realise Stark's lack of sobriety and her pupils shrank to pin pricks (well the one in her pale eye did, I couldn't see the other one) and she clenched her jaw.

"It's 10:23," she said, glancing at her watch. "Isn't it a bit early to be drunk?"

"It's never too early to be drunk, sweetheart, didn't you-" Tony didn't finish his sentence, however, as the bottle of scotch he was drinking from was suddenly pierced by a razor sharp shard of ice and shattered completely.

"1, don't call me sweetheart, and 2, I don't associate with drunks,"

Tony looked like he wanted to punch the girl, but one warning look from Steve and a glare from her made him back down. I wander what Steve knows…

Once Tony had backed down, the girl spoke again. "Why am I here? The last thing I remembered…" she trailed off, realisation finally sinking in. "Look if you're going to try and recruit me too, then you can fuck off. I sure as hell don't want to kill anyone. Thanks a bunch for the whole not-killing-me and for helping me regain consciousness, but I really must be going." With this she turned on her heel and walked towards the door.

"Where are you going to go?" asked Steve, successfully stopping the girl in her tracks. "You ran away, didn't you? If you leave, you're just going to be on your own again. And you couldn't take another attack. Those wounds are still quite critical, you could easily be killed."

The girl turned around, her eyebrows scrunched together in confusion. She looked at Steve, who in turn looked at each of us and gave a minute shake of his head. So small only people looking very closely (like me) could notice. The girl seemed to understand, however, and didn't make a move to leave again.

"And we don't want you to kill anyone. We're the Avengers, we stop people like Skull and MODOK from doing the killing." I reassured. "Now why don't you tell us your name?"

"I'm Holly," she said warily. "And you are?"

"I'm Clint, she's Natasha, the drunk one is Tony, the one with the weird hair is Thor," (this got an indignant 'Hey!') "That blonde one is Steve, that one over there is Sam and the one eating like there's no tomorrow is Bruce." I answered.

"Okaaay, now I know who you are, why am I here?"

"You're probably going to hate us for this, but we want to recruit you," Steve said, wincing slightly when Holly glared at him. "Look, I hate to say it, but if you go out there again, the Skull and MODOK will try to either recruit you again or just straight up kill you."

"Fine," she snapped, fiercely. "But I still don't really know what I'm being recruited for."

"The Avengers. We're superheroes." I stated.

"Wait, superheroes are real?" she asked.

"Of course they are!" I answered. "Didn't you have them back home?"

She just snorted. "To the rest of the world, superheroes only exist in comic books, movies and bad cartoons. That's why my-" she shook her head, "that's why I ran away. People with strange powers aren't accepted into society. I would've been put into a mental asylum if people had found out."

As that information sunk in, Natasha decided to break the uncomfortable silence that had fallen over the Avengers. "Well, why don't we give you the grand tour?"

"I'll do it!" Tony slurred almost immediately. Holly screwed up her nose a little, but said nothing. Steve, clearly seeing this was a bad idea as who knows what Tony would do when drunk, decided it would be better if her gave the grand tour.

Holly's p.o.v.

I have to say, I'm glad Steve volunteered to do the tour. I hate drunks. My parents were always drunk at home and they were even worse than normal. It's not that I couldn't hold Tony off, he's a middle aged drunk without a proper heart, but it just brought back painful memories. Besides, I needed to ask Steve about the whole 'running away' thing.

As soon as we left the kitchen, he turned down the hallway. At first he didn't say anything so I decided to break the silence. "Alright, what's with the whole 'running away' thing?" I asked.

At first he didn't reply, but then he tugged me into a deserted room and opened his mouth to speak. "Look," he said. "I know that you didn't run away. I know that much, but nobody else does. I figured if you wanted them to know then you would tell them. So I just said that you were attacked by some wild animal in the woods and then Skull and MODOK found you. I saw how you fight, I didn't think you'd want them babying you."

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. "Thanks, I really appreciate it." I replied. I then chuckled and added, "But you might need to work on your excuses. Scotland isn't really well known for its wildlife. There might be a badger, no one's seen it in a while," I joked. "You're lucky only about two members of your team have more than half a brain cell."

He chuckled a bit and carried on with the tour. Half way through though, I stopped suddenly. There was someone following us. I cast my eyes around the hallway we were in and caught sight of our pursuer. When Steve noticed I'd stopped, he asked me what was wrong.

"Let's just say, Natasha may be an assassin, but she's rather loud,"

I heard a laugh from behind us and Natasha appeared from the shadows. "You're pretty good," she complimented. "Come on, it's lunch."

At the mention of lunch, Steve immediately sprinted down the hall to the kitchen, leaving me and Natasha laughing in the corridor.

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**Thanks for reading, guys! this is really just a bit of a filler chapter, I'm still working on which villains to put in next. The next chapter should be up by the week after next, if not by the end of the month. Sorry if it's taking so long, but I have to use my mum's computer cause mine is broken (courtesy of my little brother) so it might take a while. Thanks again! Please give me your thoughts, but no hate.**


	4. Chapter 3 - simulation

**Hey guys, I hope you guy like this chapter! Just so you know, this isn't going to be the cliché 'abusive father' story, he does have avery good reason why he does that (even if unknowingly) and that will be explained next chapter. Hope you like it!**

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Tony p.o.v.

As soon as the Avengers finished lunch (well really as soon as most of them ate a normal amount and amusedly watched as Steve's high metabolism allowed him to eat me out of house and home. Again) we got called to a meeting with Fury. We all went along, including our new teammate. I'm really not sure what to make of the small Scottish girl. Only I'm planning on seeing if any self-respecting Scot would put haggis over their throats. Anyway, I'm getting off track. As soon as we walked into the board room, Fury asked who Holly was. She looked like she would make Fury spontaneously combust, if she could. So we quickly explained who she was and Fury nodded in understanding.

"So," I asked, breaking the silence. "Why are we here?"

"Glad you asked," replied Maria Hill, as she walked through the door. "We've got a new training mechanism. First, we have to scan your mind, see what your true fears are. It's all processed by a machine and then the machine recreates these fears and helps you overcome them. Like a simulation, if you will. We wanted to test it out on you guys, and we decided to get to know the new recruit better." At this she turned to Holly. "We want you to go first."

Holly seemed completely indifferent to me, but one look at the furrowed brows of our master assassins said that there was something wrong. I looked at the Scottish teenager again and saw what they had noticed. Her posture seemed normal, but if you looked close enough, you could see how nervous she really was. Her mismatched eyes swirled and her pupils we pinpricks. She was picking at her fingernails nervously and looked dangerously close to self-combustion due to losing control of herself. She just nodded stiffly that she understood, and Fury and Hill didn't seem to think anything was wrong. I suppose she is a complete stranger to them. She sort of was to us, but we had seen how she really is, sarcastic, laid-back and cheerful. Something was definitely up.

Maria addressed her once again. "There will be two people seeing your fears as you do, everyone else will just see your reaction to them," she told the nervous girl. "One will be a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and the other will be an Avenger of your choice. So take your pick."

"Steve," she said automatically, her thick accent laced with fear, but Hill obviously thought this was just nerves as she nodded and led us from the room.

We followed her silently down the hall, Holly biting her nails and Steve frowning with concern. They obviously knew something. We soon reached a room and Holly did as she was instructed and the 'scan' as they called it, was done. We were then lead to an interrogation room. Holly on one side of the one-sided glass, us on the other. Steve was handed a pair of high-tech goggles that would let him see what Holly did, and the simulation started.

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Steve p.o.v.

I felt bad about this. Really bad. I knew straight away why the young girl chose me. I'm the only one who knows what really happened to her. Suddenly, the clear goggles began to swirl and the image cleared. We were viewing it from Holly's eyes, so we could only see what she saw. At first I couldn't tell what was so frightening about the man that appeared, and neither did the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent beside me. He was middle-aged, slightly large and obviously drunk out of his mind.

"Now sweetheart," he slurred, drunkenly. "What did I tell you about using those abnormalities of yours?" Now I fully understood what was happening, and why Holly freaked when Tony had called her 'sweetheart' while drunk. This man was her father.

I immediately panicked, what was going to happen? As if answering my question, the man drew back his arm, holding his empty liquor bottle and brought it down to smash it on her head. I thought she was going to fight back, or at least try to dodge, but she just stood there and took the hit. But it seemed the man wasn't finished. He grabbed a nearby bottle, this one full, and I knew this would hurt like hell. Alcohol on a wound is painful. Even for me. Again he brought his arm back, but this time he aimed for the side of her head, the temple. Again, she stood there and took the hit, but this time she screamed out and fell to the floor. Suddenly the simulation ended. I took off the goggles and looked around, confused. It looked like Bruce, who had been monitoring Holly's heart rate in the face of fear, had turned the simulation off when her heart beat got dangerously low. She was now yelling at Maria while Clint went next door to pick up the, now unconscious and heavily bleeding, Holly.

The S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and I joined the argument, but agreed with Bruce, no one should be forced to go through that, especially as it was slowly killing Holly. He didn't know who the man was, but the agent knew it was bad. Clint then rushed into the room holding the Scot in his arms.

"Banner!" he called out as he lay the unconscious girl on the table. Bruce looked over at the girl, cursed, and immediately got to work.

"How did she get so wounded in a simulation?" he asked, confused.

"The whole point of it is you're supposed to dodge incoming attacks that you fear from the enemies. She must have had a lot attacking her." Mused a confused agent Hill.

"No," I replied, a little angry. "She doesn't fear being attacked. She could easily hold off attackers. There is only one person she fears. And it's been wired into her brain to take a hit from him."

"You know who that man was?" asked the agent who had watched the simulation with me.

"Unfortunately so," I replied sadly. "She told me about what he has done earlier today. There is only one person she fears. And that is, of all people, her own father."

I looked around at the group of superheroes. Clint looked furious, Thor had disappeared in a flash of light, probably gone back to Asguard to hammer something. Natasha had an emotionless mask on, as usual, but I could see she was shell-shocked. Bruce let out a low growl, but continued stitching up the wounds and Sam just looked appalled. And then I glanced at Tony. His face showed a wide range of emotions, but I knew he could relate to the girl. If there was one thing her understood, it was father problems. Well, that and science.

"What are you talking about?" Natasha asked, her voice calm but strained.

In answer, I replied, "Watch the play back, that'll explain things."

Maria nodded and rushed off to start the playback.

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Tony p.o.v.

By the time Thor had arrived back from Asguard, they had wheeled in a large screen so we could view the playback. Holly was still unconscious, but Bruce said she would be okay. I can't believe it really, Holly doesn't exactly scream 'abusive father' so she must be good at acting. What surprised me the most, however, is that she just stood there. As Steve put it she'd 'been trained to take a hit'. That could be dangerous, but when she fought a while back, she was dodging fine. Maybe it was just with her father.

Anyway, once the screen was turned on, we saw the room as it was. Then, however, the images began to swirl a bit before solidifying into the image of one man. I have to say, he was a bit hard on the eyes. Around this point, Holly woke up. She frowned, but didn't say anything. She probably presumed something like this would happen.

As we watched the video feed, I became more and more confused. Something about this seemed fishy, and I was sure to find out.

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**Here you go guys. As I said earlier, this hopefully isn't going to be a cliché. The father has a reason (a rather complicated one involving a deceased friend, fire, a job of ridiculously high importance and a stupid but effective plan which needs excessive amounts of alcohol) and this will be explained in the next chapter.**


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